INTRODUCTION

If you are familiar with the Introduction, scroll down to the Table of Contents and click on the word underlined to go to your selected chapter.

Since a number of towns in Denmark have the same name, those using this Index should note the volume number following the town name. In the case where confusion over a town name might arise, the name of the abbreviation of the county name should follow. In this manner Bregninge H. could not be confused with Bregninge Aa,.

Within a subtopic, entries are in order of date with the earliest being first. Many of the items described in this Index contain more than one iconographic subject, and hence require more than one reference in the Index. To save space, much of the description is encoded; the codes are explained below. A sample entry follows:

Brarap, VIII-1249, 7. Wall painting. North wall, right half. c. 1500. By the Brarup Workshop. S-147, M-K 4-85. In NM.

The first word, or group of words gives the location of the church and, following, the name of the church (where more than one church exists in this location). The problem of duplicate town names is dealt with above.

The second notation which starts with a Roman numeral is the volume and page where the iconographic subject is described in Danmarks Kirker.

The third notation, given in Arabic numerals, identify the image of the iconographic subject in Danmarks Kirker.

The fourth notation indicates the medium used by the artist for the original image.

The fifth notation gives the location within the church. For a few wall paintings, because of the loss of some of my notes, the location cannot be indicated.

The fifth notation gives the the date. When circa is indicated for a date, there is an uncertainty of twenty-five years plus and minus.

The sixth notation gives the workshop, the artist, or provenance.

The seventh and eighth notation applies to wall paintings. When a wall painting is listed, the page number of the description in Niels M. Saxtorph, Danmarks kalkmalerier (Copenhagen: Politikens Forlag, 1986), is shown as S-161.

When a photographic slide of the wall painting is available in the Mills-Kronborg Collection, the notation reads M-K, followed by the reference number.

The last notation notes the present location of the item if it is different from the original location. Saxo's Celle is a museum at Soroe Cathedral.

Note on the Index. Certain problems have been encountered, in part the volumes of Danmarks Kirker were published over a period of sixty-five years by a succession of researchers. Medieval names commonly adopt different spellings for the same individual, and some researchers chose one spelling in preference to another. A further difficulty lies in the individual researchers' assessment of the material under discussion. In commenting on a pulpit, for example, one would say "this was made by Brix," while another would differ, saying that it is "from the Brix workshop" or even identifying it as "in the style of Brix. Furthermore, spelling practice changed over the years, the most common changes being from the form Aa to Å,the form oe to ø, and ae to æ. Since all forms are accepted in Denmark today, I have chosen to use Aa, aa, Oe, oe, and ae for ease of writing in English. Some town names have also changed--e.g., the town of Kjeldby is now known as Keldby. However, because of the geographical arrangement of Danmarks Kirker, churches may be easily identified in spite of such variant spellings. Individual references in the body of the present Index will reflect the spelling variations or differing attributions assigned by the researchers who prepared the individual volumes of Danmarks Kirker.

Furthermore, spelling practice changed over the years, the most common changes being from the form Aa to Å, the form oe to ø, and ae to æ. Since all forms are accepted in Denmark today, I have chosen to use Aa, aa, Oe, oe, and ae for ease of writing in English.

CONTENTS

I. The Representationof God, Angels, & Devils

II. Old Testament

III. Blessed Virgin Mary

IV. The Infancy of Christ.

V. Christ's Ministry.

VI. The Passion.

VII. The Risen Christ

VIII. Conclusion of the Life of the Virgin

IX. Last Judgment

X. Apostles and Evangelists

XI. Saints

XII. Allegories and Allegorical Subjects

XIIIA. Miscellaneous - Animals and Plants

XIIIB. Miscellaneous - Humans

XIIIC. Miscellaneous - Religious

XIIID. Miscellaneous- Secular

Here are the periods for the several styles of the wall paintings-

Romanesque 1100-1250

Transitional or Early Gothic, 1250-1350

High Gothic, 1350-1400

Late Gothic, 1400-1525

Renaissance, 1525-1600

Of course these dates are not exact, and some overlap is found.

While the greater number of the wall paintings were painted by unknown artists, there were a number of workshops. Most of the workshops were named after the church in which their work was first found.

Morten Maler, Morten the Painter, painted mostly in the Northwest corner of Zealand. c.1400.

The Kongsted Workshop worked in Southern Zealand. c. 1430.

The Union Workshop was named after the fact that worked both in Southern Sweden and in Northwest Zealand. c.1425.

The Isefjord Workshop worked around the Isefjord in Northwest Zealand. c. 1450.

The Three Kings Workshop worked in Zealand. c. 1640.

The Elmelunde Workshop worked in Southern Zealand and the islands south of Zealand. c. 1480

The Brarup Workshop worked in North Zealand. c. 1500.

The Traeskomaleren (the wodden shoe painters) painted on Fyn and Langeland. c. 1480.

Peter L. . . ykt painted in South Jutland. c. 1525.

This collection of slides was planned as a research tool. The earlier editions of Saxtorph's book on the Danish church wall paintings divided the churches into three groups. First the "must see" group, second, the "well worth a detour to see" group, and the rest. This collection consists of all the wall paintings in the first two groups from over two hundred churches. There have less than ten churches with wall paintings reported since this collection was made.

As the collector, I made no judgmental calls, if Santorph said the church was important, the paintings were photographed. This resulted in a number of wall paintings which are difficult to interpret.

Fortunately, since the medieval artist was limited to pigments derived from minerals. This precludes the question of "fading". The only way that the color could change would be by abrasion or being covered by dust or carbon from candles or fires. In one church, Vesteroe on Laesoe, there had been an oil burner fire, and the paintings were covered with soot. The congregation started to clean the paintings but found that the entire surface was so soft that they were erasing the images. They stopped at once, and are awaiting the conservationists from Copenhagen University to come and refurbish the frescos.

I used the Micrografx "Picture Publisher" program (All the good image programs such as Adobe, have the same features.) to enhance my slides. Fortunately, the wall paintings were all painted on plaster, and plaster when new, is white. Knowing this, I could locate a part of the wall painting that was unpainted plaster. I could measure the color, and read the numerical results for red, green, and blue. In almost 90% of my slides I found that I had to add 10 units of blue to make the tested area a light gray. I then added brightness to start with a good white. Then I used a feature of "Picture Publisher" that allowed changes in color and contrast using a joy stick approach. I finished by using a "sharpening" feature. Many of the images still have color bias.

In some cases, the original slide was so poor that the subject matter could not be seen. Most of these were recovered in useable form. Some, however, gave poor final pictures. I tried to save the important iconographic information, even if some other aspects of the image had to be sacrificed.

James Mills